Microsoft Contractors Are Manipulating Comments About Xbox One On Reddit, Says Redditor

Microsoft is doing something on Reddit that is a big no-no,
according to an anonymous Redditor that goes by the name
"mistysilver."

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social
news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting
down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own,
Misty Silver says.

Misty Silver didn't reveal his/her real identity, except to say.
"I work for a marketing firm in Redmond that has a contract with
Microsoft. I can't say specifically which division, but suffice
to say we are not involved with the Xbox."

Microsoft, meanwhile, vehemently denies that it is doing anything
like this. It's possible that it's happening without Microsoft's
knowledge or that "MistySilver's" story is wrong.

The story goes: While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver
saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of
the employee's screens:

"I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments,
and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of
his own. I couldn't make out exactly what he was posting, but I
presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my
boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just
brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation
management for the Xbox One," Silver reported.

"Reputation management" is the term social media marketers use to
"pose as happy customers" on social media sites. They
upvote/downvote and make comments.

In the last year or so, Reddit has become a prime target for
reputation management, Misty Silver says.

In extreme cases it can get an entire company completely banned
from Reddit.

That's probably impossible with Microsoft. Legit Redditors are
going to want to discuss the company and its products. But this
kind of stuff still really irks Redditors. One of them even
outed a Reddit account they thought belonged to a Microsoft
marketer.

Obviously, we can't confirm this story. We asked Microsoft for
comment on if they have people on their payroll using Reddit.

This is what Microsoft told us: "There is no coordinated or
sanctioned effort by Microsoft employees, or anyone paid by
Microsoft, to unduly influence Reddit or other online forums."